Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One and Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Bertram is also the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire.

Follow Bertram's Blog via Email

Follow Bertram on Twitter

A Trip of Treats

March 28, 2016 — Pat Bertram

This has been a journey of many treats. I had hoped the trip would include much hiking, but I seem to be in a sedentary mode with all the driving and the visits with friends. In an effort to break that pattern, I took a side road that was supposed to intersect with the Florida National Trail, but I never found it. (I have a hunch that parts of FNT, like parts of the California Coastal Trail, exist as an as yet unrealized hope.)

When I realized I had passed the trail, which followed a shortcut back to the freeway, I considered going back but decided to keep moving on down the road, and I am glad I did. Such a treat! It was a beautiful drive among trees, past spectacular beaches, and through beach towns. Driving across the water on intercoastal highways was a special thrill.

The most memorable part of that leg of the journey was Bonita Bay, a recreational area run by the Air Force. It seemed strange to me that a war engine would be involved in something so trivial, but it wasn’t as surprising as it would have been before I learned that the Army Corps of Engineers runs campgrounds all over the country.

Even more memorable, at the end of the road, I met in person a fellow author, Coco Ihle, author of She Had to Know. I enjoyed hearing the story behind her book, which is based on her own search for her long-lost-now found sister, and I have been privileged to see her in her own milieu.

Coco is amazing! Everything she touches turns to beauty. Whichever way you turn in her house is another fabulous piece of art, collected from her world travels, bought at a bargain from Big Lots, or created by her. To my delight, she keeps her Christmas tree — perhaps the most beautiful tree I have ever seen — set up most of the year.

She kindly let me take pictures, to post here, and even let me post the fabulous photo of herself when she was a belly dancer. (Coco is the woman who encouraged me to look into belly dancing for myself.)

Besides all that, we have been playing tourist. We had dinner at a restaurant in a Greek town on the sponge docks. (A one time, sponge was a bigger industry in Florida than even oranges or tourism.) We ate on the docks, with the Anclote River flowing by and a sandhill crane keeping us company.

Now we are off to see the Florida Aquarium, another incredible treat in a trip that has been nothing but treats.

See you when we get back!

***

(Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”)

(Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”)

Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One debunks many established beliefs about what grief is, explains how it affects those left behind, and shows how to adjust to a world that no longer contains the loved one. “It is exactly what folk need to read who are grieving.”(Leesa Heely Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator ).

Other books by Pat Bertram

Available online wherever books and ebooks are sold.

Grief: The Great Yearning is not a how-to but a how-done, a compilation of letters, blog posts, and journal entries Pat Bertram wrote while struggling to survive her first year of grief. This is an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.

While sorting through her deceased husband’s effects, Amanda is shocked to discover a gun and the photo of an unknown girl who resembles their daughter. After dedicating her life to David and his vocation as a pastor, the evidence that her devout husband kept secrets devastates Amanda. But Amanda has secrets of her own. . .

When Pat’s adult dance classmates discover she is a published author, the women suggest she write a mystery featuring the studio and its aging students. One sweet older lady laughingly volunteers to be the victim, and the others offer suggestions to jazz up the story. Pat starts writing, and then . . . the murders begin.

Thirty-seven years after being abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Colorado, Becka Johnson returns to try to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? And why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen?

When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents -- grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born -- she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead.

In quarantined Colorado, where hundreds of thousands of people are dying from an unstoppable, bio-engineered disease, investigative reporter Greg Pullman risks everything to discover the truth: Who unleashed the deadly organism? And why?

Bob Stark returns to Denver after 18 years in SE Asia to discover that the mother he buried before he left is dead again. At her new funeral, he sees . . . himself. Is his other self a hoaxer, or is something more sinister going on?